Testimonials - What’s the Right Job for You

Case 1

Callan Robinson

Any reservations before attending?:
Other people would look at me as being young or too inexperienced and if I could get my foot in the door somehow, in the corporate world by attending this seminar.

What he found:
I discovered where my strengths and weaknesses lie and which job would suit me the best. What area of work I should be in and what areas I shouldn’t be were the most important things I realized.

Some other benefits of attending:
I liked the graph, it was visual and you could see exactly where your strengths lie and that was the most beneficial thing for me. Having a person so experienced as Mats, was very important, getting his viewpoints on his experience plus looking at different graphs such as a manager, a service engineer and a teacher.

Would you recommend it?
I would recommend this seminar to anyone who is not sure what career suits them and that’s probably the majority of the population, most people have no idea what suits them.

Case 2

H.M.

Any reservations before attending?:
My financial situation, the cost was an obstacle because I don’t have a job.

What she discovered:
It is detailed. I realized that my business personality was quite different from my private personality. I guess I answered the questionnaires in these I was thinking if I could bring these two together I could live a happier life but still I have this business mind, because if my friends look at this, it says I’m a gray (Baser: rules, routines, detail-oriented etc.) person, but they would say I was a ‘developer’ (intuitive, strategic, innovative, etc.) or results oriented, I came up with stupid ideas and lose train tickets but when I’m in the office, and I’m paid I’m actually very organized. ! I saw the gap in myself that was very interesting.

Other Benefits?
To see myself from other people’s point of view I also realized that if I can act like what I see in this profile it’s probably more appealing to the interviewer when getting a job, for example acting more like an ‘integrator’ instead of a ‘results seeker’ at least to get into the company regardless of what I want to do.

Would you recommend others to attend?
I would recommend this seminar for people who are lost about themselves. I just realized the drawback too because people might get solid ideas about their personalities and have a hard time trying to get out of it I think it would help.

Case 3

S. Alan Baker
senior vice president
Japanese public relations company

Any reservations before attending?:
I’m aware of the fact that I’m probably older than most people here, and I thought that this seminar would have been for people in their 20s and 30s wanting to get a sense of their personality type so it wasn’t really my motivation in coming so I thought that was a little obstacle for me.

What did you find out?
Confirmation of traits that I had, maybe realized I probably would’ve enjoyed being a teacher even though I didn’t pursue that in my life. And also a weirdness, that truly, people have different styles, different personalities, the idea that to formulate a team, intentionally and consciously with different personality types I felt that interesting as well. It seems like it would work in theory but whether it works in practice I don’t know.

Other benefits?
The printout that identified the personality type was interesting. Got to meet interesting people. To hear somebody who has spent a lot of time studying this and getting that person’s opinon.

Would you recommend others to attend?
It reminds me of astrological profiles, you know in the West, in America, Astrology for example, you give your birthday, you get something like this, but this is surprisingly accurate I felt. I only thought of this in terms of my business personality. Would I recommend it? Yeah I guess I would. Depending on the person, and where they were, career, in terms of their life as well. I guess there was a danger, that this really hits the nail on the head, you have a fixed idea about yourself, actually we’re always changing, developing going in different directions, but I think I would recommend it because you get insights about yourself. And for 7,000 yen it is very reasonable. It’s worth it.

Case 4

Brent Conkle

Any reservations before attending?:
Luckily, I checked my email last night, I was out of the office all yesterday to do the profile, I did it around 10:30 and I’m just glad that I could check it and get it in. I should have registered quicker, checked my email earlier.

What did you find out?
Mats knows what he’s talking about, if someone was going to use his service I’m sure they would get more than they would be paying for in terms of self discovery, a little bit of direction, it’s very helpful for a job seeker.

Other benefits?
The speaker was excellent, knew what he was talking about, the tool itself is very good, user-friendly, fair, give you good feedback, and the way he presented everything today was humorous, informative, a good learning experience.

Would you recommend others to attend?
I thought I just answered this? What do you think I’m going to say, absolutely! There are so many people out there looking for direction, purpose, a little bit of; what should I do with my life? Why am I struggling? Why am I being challenged? Yes, starting with your personality and understanding other people and what their personalities are, how to work together, everything just gets a whole lot better.

Case 5

Ritusko Takekoshi

Any reservations before attending?:
Scheduling was a potential problem. If it was a different day it might have been easier to go, for example in the evening. But I managed to come anyway!

What she discovered:
I was a little surprised. I took another profile test prior to this one so I sort of knew about profiles before, and I worked as a salesperson for 10 years, and I thought I didn’t fit sales, and my test results were green (Developer: creative, innovative, long-term) and red (Result Seeker: direct, energetic, impatient etc.), mostly red, and so I thought that I didn’t fit sales but now I find out that I actually did. My colleagues were more like blue (Integator: very good with people, tolerant, uniting, patient etc.) so I thought I didn’t fit there, but it may have been because of my colleagues. I think many Japanese companies are more blue oriented, even in sales, so I was very surprised to find out that my profile was red. It was so true when he talked about the difference between the grey and the blue where the grey was more detailed oriented and the blue was more people oriented the sales and I was more into grey and less in blue that was really surprising to find out. I also liked the cartoons, they were easy to understand.

Some other benefits:
-Meeting other people
-I could get more information on other planned CareerCross seminars

Case 6

Yutaka Sawada

Any reservations before attending?:
None!

What he found out:
The 4 quadrants were interesting, how to deal with people, who you are how to deal with them, and everyone has their own profile. You can change your attitude and behavior but you cannot change your personality, you can suffer sometimes when the job does not fit your personality and feel you’re not good enough at it, blame it on the personality! My result was a true blue (Integator: very good with people, tolerant, uniting, patient etc.) and I did service sales, when the customer is already there, I started as a mechanical engineer so when I started at service sales it was the worst feeling, because people around me weren’t the blue type (and were more the red type which shows that it wasn’t necessarily the job but the difference in personalities that made me feel bad.

Some other benefits of attending:
First time I saw a logical approach to undertstanding your profile There was never a systematic approach to learning your personality like this, so that was my benefit. This was the first time I’ve ever seen this or experienced this!

Would you recommend it?
It depends on who would need this, if he/she were looking for something I think I will tell them.